Man, woman, and child(32)

"Oh, they will," smiled Sheila, "especially since your books will have been reissued and updated."

"Well, I can see I'm being buttered up to do serious revisions," he said. "But to speak with that same candor you approve of, I was really thinking along the lines of, you know, 'Preface to the second edition' sort of thing. And then I could plead Washington pressures for not being able to revamp the whole business."

"Well, in that case, you don't need me," Sheila replied pleasantly but firmly, "and I don't think



the Press would reissue your books with nothing but cosmetic changes."

Wilson shifted a bit uneasily in his chair, took a sip of coffee and then looked at Sheila.

'Tou're not too bad in the candor department, either." He smiled. "Uh—what sort of things did you have in mind?"

''Well, these are only first impressions. Tve only been able to skim the books since Evelyn called me. But take The Re-Emergence of Postwar Germany. It was the best thing published in its time. It's not your fault that it came out just before Brandt began his Ostpolitik.'*

He affected a shght frown. "Mmm," he said. 'Tm afraid you're right. Anything else?"

*Tes, Fm sorry. But there are a lot of things we'd have to go over in detail. Still, if I were you, Fd take the time. Now that you're in the papers a little more than the average Harvard professor, some of your academic colleagues—which is to say everybody who didn't get appointed to the Security Council—will start trying to punch holes in your scholarship."

He smiled broadly. ''How do you know university politics so well?"

"My husband's a professor at MIT."

"Really? What's his field?"

"Statistics."

"Oh, a real brain. Fm always self-conscious when I meet that sort of mind. I can barely add a column of figures."

"Neither can Bob." Sheila smiled. "That's my job at the end of every month."

"Oh," said Gavin Wilson. "Then my admiration for you knows no bounds."

And now his smile did not seem to be solely for Sheila's arithmetical abiUty.



In any case, considering the ice fairly well broken, Sheila got back to business.

''So you can see you've got even more at stake in these revisions than we do/'

'Tes, but if I understand your drift, you're asking for an enormous amount of work."

She nodded. "But your editor is willing to do her share."

''That's a genuine inducement/' said Wilson, "so let's get on with it. I'll try not to be too depressed."

"May I continue to be frank?"

"By all means be brutal. Rather you than the critics. Besides, I have a resilient ego."

"Well," Sheila continued, ''Anglo-American Ke-lotions needs an updated epilogue, but otherwise it's in fine shape."

"Bloody lucky. Especially since that one got me my Harvard appointment. How about my Common Market thing?"

"Well," Sheila answered slowly, searching for tactful words, "even as we speak, that picture's changing. And you did make occasional predictions that have proved—well—somewhat off target."

"Dead wrong, you mean. Like there'd never be a European parliament and all that. I'd make a pretty bad clairvoyant, wouldn't I?" He said it all with good humor, and then added, "Now I have a rather serious question."

"Yes?"

"What do you hear about a restaurant called Harvest?"

"Uh—it's quite good."

"Let's go then, shall we?"

Margo would doubtless be at her daily comer table. But what the hell—this was business, wasn't it?



Gavin dressed for lunch. Which is to say he put a dungaree jacket over his Red Sox T-shirt. When they got to the restaurant, it was rather late. Most people were having coffee and dessert—and Margo seemed to have left.

It was July, and Cambridge was an oven. So they ordered iced tea instead of an aperitif. Facing a long afternoon of editorial negotiations, they restricted their luncheon conversation to small talk.

"What is your husband working on at the moment?''

''Nothing serious. Our month at the Cape is strictly for reading paperbacks."

"Ah, a well-adjusted academic. Not too compulsive. Wish I could resist the furor scribendi. But Fm still driven to pubhsh. Do you have any children?"

This most innocuous of social queries jolted her out of the temporary amnesia she was enjoying.

"Uh—yes," she replied after a split second. "Two girls, nine and twelve. You?"

"Two. Quite grown up. My son's reading medicine at Oxford, Gemma's still at home with my ex-wife. But she'll be starting some sort of comparative literature thing at East Anglia this fall. I don't think they miss their father much, but Fm afraid I do them."